Cigar Box Saga

It's been a more interesting than usual past two weeks, finally had something interesting to do.
Last Thursday Verna came over and she got a lot done, she's making these really cool artist cards, and I finally got something going on my cigar box project. For some reason,
I love the idea of decorating cigar boxes. I had a wonderful still life with musical instruments which was exactly the right size for the top of a box. But the top of the box was a little rough, and this picture was out of a magazine, so I decided I should probably put another piece of paper behind it. This might have worked, had I let the first piece dry, but nooooooooo, not me. So while trying to put the picture on (which I hadn't bothered to copy, so I only had one picture) I got it on crooked. When I took it off to try to reposition it, the damn thing rolled up and I got glue on the front side of the picture. And I still got it on there crooked. Also, because of there being two layers of wet glue, it was kind of lumpy. So then I decided that what I needed was a finish that looked crackled, to give the impression I meant to do this. Verna to the rescue. She brought something that really did the job.
Until the next day, when I looked at it, and it just looked like kind of a haze on top of the picture -- not to mention that as soon as I touched it, a certain amount of it just flaked off. Then I discovered that all of it would flake off with hardly any rubbing at all. So I rubbed it all off. There's still a little crackle left in the middle, but I think it looks all right. I had a picture of a frame which I cut and pasted to make it look like a picture, and put that around it to hide the fact that it was on crooked. I still have to do the inside, then I'll varnish the whole thing, and I'll be able to keep all the junk I have next to the harpsichord in it.

Sunday Carol came up and we went to a wonderful concert by Camerata Capistrano part of a Bach festival they're having at St. Mark's church. It was a wonderful concert. I'm just amazed at how well those students play.

Tuesday I had the moneyworks group over for dinner, and made the best corned beef I've ever made. I borrowed Carol's crockpot, it's about the size of a Morris minor, and I was able to put about 6 pounds of corned beef, 14 potatoes and 7 carrots in it. Really easy to do. Then I just took some of the juice out and cooked the cabbage on top of the stove. I tried a dessert from a magazine that didn't have a picture with it. It was mostly dates and pecans, and turned out something like a pecan pie, but it wasn't very cosmetically appealing, and I wasn't even sure that was how it was supposed to be, so I made a cheesecake -- which is my never-fail, go-to dessert. Everything was yummy and it was really nice to have the smaller group -- I usually do Christmas which means people can bring their husbands or whatever, and it's really hard to do a sit down dinner for that many people. Involves a lot of furniture moving.

Wednesday Camellia Camerata had our moment of glory at Westminster Music at Noon concert. It was a bit less than glorious, but it went all right. Today, Friday, we are playing at the home of a friend of Billie's, and tomorrow we repeat our concert for the Saturday Club here. I feel like I'm on an endless stream of housecleaning, but that just reflects the fact that generally I do NONE.